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Mar 052013
 

Auroric Dreams DJ James Cathcart Stone Fox Noize Index Tony Gerber
On Wednesday, March 13th at The Stone Fox, space music legend Tony Gerber joins forces with electronic music’s next generation Noize Index (aka Bryan Burnett) in their new band Auroric Dreams. The show also features DJ James Cathcart spinning “spacy minimal synth to freaked out earthy commune jams” and Circuit Benders’ Ball alum Josh Gumiela projecting trippy OpenGL visuals. James recently teamed up with Third Man Records and the Belcourt Theatre for a monthly experimental film series called The Light and Sound Machine. Josh just unveiled his newest art installation (which involves water dropping into an old metal pan in increasing frequency) at Boheme Collectif’s Future Night. He hopes to have the installation up again at another venue soon.

In addition to all of that, this concert is a big deal to me because of Tony Gerber’s massive contributions to the Nashville music scene. Many are unaware of Nashville’s ties to the development of space music, the genre of ambient experimental music popularized by the Hearts of Space public radio show. Vanderbilt Department of Fine Arts faculty member Don Evans began the Vanderbilt Media Experimentation Center in 1969 and fostered a spirit of exploration and rule-breaking in the many students who took his video art, multimedia, photography, and computer graphics courses.

Tony Gerber moved to Nashville from Northern Indiana in the early 80s and developed a friendship with Don. In a 1999 interview with Aural Innovations, Tony said:

I had also started collaborating with Don Evan’s at Vanderbilt University in the early 80s. Don is well known for his multimedia work in the 60s and continues to this day. He has a huge collection of esoteric electronic music recordings and is a great supporter of electronic music. He had been using eMusic composers with his performances since the 60s and it was a natural for me to start working with him. Thus I was introduced to multimedia performance in conjunction with eMusic.

Tony formed Space for Music, a Hearts of Space listening group that eventually evolved into a radio show, music festival, and label. The listening group helped foment Nashville’s space music community, with notable members including Jack TamulGil Trythall, William Linton, Robin Crow, Allen Green, and Giles Reaves, whose 1986 album Wunjo made Electronic Musician magazine’s list of top electronic albums of all time. In 1996, Tony formed the influential space music group Spacecraft with Lexington, Kentucky’s John Rose (later adding Diane Timmons).

Tony continues to innovate. As his avatar Cypress Rosewood, he hosts a weekly Ambient Sunday concert on the virtual realty world Second Life. Tony and his brother Todd talk about their musical accomplishments and the Nashville music community on episode 90 of Theatre Intangible.

The Facebook event page states Auroric Dreams is “an electro-acoustic music duo group with members Bryan Burnett of Noize Index and veteran live space music performer Tony Gerber. Instruments include synthesizers, guitars, EWI (Electronic Wind Instrument), native flutes, computers, ipads, iphones and vocals.”

I’m incredibly excited for this show, and I hope to see you there!

Auroric Dreams
DJ James Cathcart
Josh Gumiela (OpenGL visuals)

@ The Stone Fox
Wednesday, March 13th, 9pm, $5
712 51st Ave N, Nashville, TN 37209

Aug 152012
 

Gerber & Gerber live at Brick Factory Nashville

Today on the podcast, I interview brothers Tony and Todd Gerber. Tony and Todd have been making music together and separate since they were ages 9 and 3, first in Northern Indiana where they grew up, and later in Nashville, TN.

Tony Gerber wears many hats, including visual artist, virtual reality homesteader, and record label founder; but it’s his contribution to electronic, ambient, and space music that put him on the map. As a solo artist, with his band Spacecraft, and in dozens of other projects, Tony’s music has been featured in movie soundtracks, planetarium shows, and on the NPR program “Hearts of Space.” His alter ego and avatar Cypress Rosewood performs concerts in the virtual reality world of Second Life.

In 1992, Todd Gerber helped establish the Casio SK-1 keyboard as a valid musical instrument in his band UMLAUT with Troy Sharp, long before the instrument achieved cult-cool status. Soon after, he co-founded the bands drrdrr and Dinah Shore, Jr., and with the latter he performed on bills with Robert Fripp, Adrian Belew, Trey Gunn, The Amazing Delores, and Trans Am.

On May 7th 2012 at Brick Factory Nashville, Tony and Todd performed together for the first time in 9 years as the new project Gerber & Gerber. We play a clip of that performance on this showcase. You can download the full performance for FREE right here: Gerber & Gerber live at Brick Factory Nashville, May 7th, 2012. (Left click to stream, right click to save.)

Here is the full listing of the songs we play on this episode. (Ordered by band, album, title.) 1. Spacecraft, Hummel, Galileo. 2. Umlaut, SK-1 Works 1989-1994, Untitled. 3. Spacecraft, Spacecraft, Transmission. 4. Port of Saints, Falling Shadows. 5. Todd Gerber, Ponder Solo Work, Love’s Philosophy. 6. Gerber & Gerber, Live at Brick Factory Nashville. 7. Cypress Rosewood, Isle of Wyrms, Weightless in Flight.

Todd and Tony will be playing as Gerber & Gerber Friday, August 17th at the Midwest Electro-Music Experience in Indianapolis, Indiana. Tony will also play the festival Saturday, August 18th with Paul Vnuk, Jr.

Todd is performing in Nashville on a bill with tape loop master Jason Lescalleet, Saturday, August 25th at Brick Factory Nashville.

Tony and Todd have been at the heart of the Nashville experimental and electronic music scenes since the late 1980s. I’m incredibly excited to have them on the show!

On the episode, we discuss TonyGerber.com, Spacecraft, Cypress Rosewood’s YouTube channel, Dinah Shore Jr., Space for Music, the Casio SK-1, Tim Kaiser, City Skies Festival, Umlaut, Masterfonics, Brick Factory Nashville, Kirby Shelstad, Mary Mancini, Lucy’s Record Shop, Sudekum Planetarium, The Nashville Intelligence Report, Suburban Baroque, Don Evans, Gil Trythall, Moog Music, Giles Reaves, William Linton, Johnny Blackburn, John Rose, Diane Timmons, Rob Mitchell, Stephen Anderson, Matt Swanson, Hummel Planetarium, Nashville Parthenon, Second Life.